Saint Peter and Saint Paul

“ Peter was a saint from the cradle, because he always strove to live only for God, and his divine honor. If one spark of that ardent love of God which inflamed the saints in their actions animated our breasts, it would give wings to our souls in all we do. ”

“ Some love Christ more than others on the ground of his divinity, as is believed to have been the case with John the Evangelist; others because of his humanity, as is believed to have been the case with Philip; and others love Christ because of his body which is the church, and so men love him for many other reasons, for which, in the case of a certain saint, they quote Ecclesiasticus 42: "No one has been found like unto him in keeping the law of the Most High." Peter's pre-eminence is manifest from his faith, humility, love, yea, and also from his poverty and endurance. ”

“ Peter, therefore, was an apostle of that very God whose was also Paul; and Him whom Peter preached as God among those of the circumcision, and likewise the Son of God, did Paul [declare] also among the Gentiles. For our Lord never came to save Paul alone, nor is God so limited in means, that He should have but one apostle who knew the dispensation of His Son. ”

“ But in any case the similarity between the Epistle and St. Paul's writings cannot be reasonably urged against its genuineness. The once popular theory that St. Paul held a fundamentally different conception of Christianity from that held by St. Peter has completely broken down. There is not a shred of evidence for believing that the semi-Christian Jews who lived in Palestine in the 2nd century represented St. Peter's {239} type of Christianity, or that the teaching of St. Peter excluded the deep teaching of St. Paul. ”

“ Peter. On the altar, consecrated in 1122, are two ancient pictures of St. Peter and St. Paul. Only half the bodies of the saints are held to be preserved here, the other portion of that of St. Peter being at the Lateran, and of St. Paul at S. Paolo fuori Mura.
To the Roman Catholic mind this is naturally one of the most sacred spots in the world, since it holds literally the words of St. Ambrose, that: "Where Peter is, there is the Church,—and where the Church is, there is no death, but life eternal." [340]
"From this place Peter, from this place Paul, shall be caught up in the resurrection. ”

“ The common supposition has been, that Peter was here wholly in the wrong, and Paul wholly in the right: a conclusion by no means justified by what is known of the facts, and of the characters of the persons concerned. Peter was a much older man than Paul, and much more disposed by his cooler blood, to prudent and careful measures. His long personal intercourse with Jesus himself, also gave him a great advantage over Paul, in judging of what would be the conduct in such a case most conformable to the spirit of his divine Master ”

“ Peter had met angels, but he, Paul, had never met one, he knew naught of angels, except the terrible Kosmokratores, the rulers of this world, the planetary spirits of the Chaldeans, and he feared angel worship, and had spoken to the Colossians against it, saying: remember there is always but one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ our Lord, who came to deliver us from those usurping powers and their chief, the Prince of the Powers of the Air. ”

“ Peter admonishes all Christians, especially the preachers, how to defend themselves against the devil's intrigues and artifices, with which he seeks to capture them. In order that Christians may be properly equipped, Saint Peter calls attention to two things: First, we must know the enemy and realize his purpose; second, we must be armed to meet him and defend ourselves, that we may stand before him and conquer. He is a terrible, mighty foe, says Peter, and is the god of this world. ”

“ Peter appears in every respect as the first: the first to confess the faith; the first in the manifestation of love; the first of all the Apostles who saw the Saviour raised from the dead, as he was the first witness of the fact before all the people; the first, when it was necessary to fill up the number of the Apostles; the first who confirmed the faith by a miracle; the first to convert the Jews; the first to receive the Gentiles; the first everywhere. {200} It is impossible for me to mention every proof. Everything concurs to establish his primacy ”

“ Paul to St. Peter: It appertaineth to me to pray, and to thee for to command. Then said Nero: This man is very God, and ye be two traitors. Then said St. Peter to St. Paul: Paul, brother, lift up thine head and see how Simon flyeth. Then St. Paul said to St. Peter when he saw him fly so high: Peter, why tarriest thou? perform that thou hast begun, God now calleth us. Then said Peter: I charge and conjure you angels of Sathanas, which bear him in the air, by the name of our Lord Jesu Christ, that ye bear ne sustain him no more, but let him fall to the earth. ”

“ Perhaps, Christ here gives an intimation to Peter, not to boast too much, as he seemed to do, of his having left all to follow Christ; as if, because he and the rest of them had borne the burthen and heat of the day thus, they must have a heaven by themselves. It is hard for those that do or suffer more than ordinary for God, not to be elevated too much with the thought of it, and to expect to merit by it. Blessed Paul guarded against this, when, though the chief of the apostles, he owned himself to be nothing, to be less than the least of all saints. ”

“ To Christianity is due also the somewhat ribald mirth which has clung for centuries about Saint Peter as gatekeeper of Heaven. We can trace this mirth back to the rude jests of the earliest miracle plays. We see these jests repeated over and over again in the folklore of Latin and Germanic nations. And if we open a comic journal to-day, there is more than a chance that we shall find Saint Peter, key in hand, uttering his time-honoured witticisms. This well-worn situation depends, as a rule, upon that common element of fun-making, the incongruous. ”

“ If our higher critics only adopted Peter's method, analyzed their own experience, following on to know their Lord and meantime willing to do his will, they too, like Peter, in spite of small beginnings, would learn of Jesus' doctrine, would emerge from the caterpillar state, would be soaring instead of creeping, and would end by gladly confessing that he who met them on the way in their first experience was none other than the omnipresent Christ, whom Paul describes as God manifest in the flesh, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. ”

“ This explains the words of Peter very clearly; the judgment of the house of God is a divine washing and purging. The church, having passed through the spirit of judgment and of burning, all that are left therein "shall be called holy." Therefore, we understand the words of Peter as having reference to the sin-consuming flames of the Sanctifier, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which corresponds with the shaking of the church, of which Paul speaks in Hebrews ”

“ Peter erred in life and in doctrine. Paul might have dismissed Peter's error as a matter of no consequence. But Paul saw that Peter's error would lead to the damage of the whole Church unless it were corrected. Therefore he withstood Peter to his face. The Church, Peter, the apostles, angels from heaven, are not to be heard unless they teach the genuine Word of God. ”

“ He died on the holy day of Saint-Peter-in-Chains, [184] and he had earned absolution by him to whom the keys to the Kingdom and the powers of absolution belonged, and it was fitting that Peter greet him at the gates of the celestial realm. A great sadness and bitter grief arose throughout the entire army of Christ; when each person, of whatever rank, sex, and age, recalled how many benefits he had received from this most compassionate of men, and understood that the bishop was past help, he grieved inconsolably. ”

“ Paul. But the growing perception of a rapprochement between the two great Apostles, which is seen in recent scholarship, points to the conclusion that St. Peter, who was evidently a man of a most impressionable nature, may not have felt himself above receiving influences from the great Apostle of the Gentiles; and it is not to be denied that there are features of the epistle which link it more closely with St. Peter's speeches in Acts than with the writings of St. Paul. On the other hand 2 Peter is the one book of the New Testament now almost universally treated as not genuine ”

“ As all other churches are made to bow to the supremacy of Rome, so all the Apostles must be subordinate to Peter. This is so obvious that the work is overdone. On the day of Pentecost he is put forward to explain the miracle of the cloven tongue, and show that it was in accordance with what the prophet Joel had foretold—which if Peter did say what he is made to say, only proved his ignorance of what the prophet meant. His miraculous powers are wonderful. He cured a man forty years old, who had been lame from his birth, so that he leaped and walked. ”

“ Peter, has always existed as the principal edifice of a vast agglomeration of smaller but similar edifices, with the prophecy of Christ that He would build the Church on the Rock of Peter, the conclusion is irresistible that the fact is the fulfilment of the prophecy. Here is the prophecy of Christ, that He would build His Church on Peter as a foundation, and that the gates of hell should not prevail against it. There is the Roman Church, evidently built on Peter as its foundation, which has endured through eighteen centuries, and is now as firm and immovable as ever. ”

“ Peter, on which Roman Catholics ground the scriptural proof of his Primacy. "For it is evident that Peter, in many places of the Scriptures, represents the Church, (personam gestet Ecclesiæ) chiefly in that place where it is said, 'I give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.' What! did Peter receive those keys, and Paul not receive them? Did Peter receive them, and John and James not receive them, and the rest of the Apostles? ”

“ The Acts of Peter are valuable for our knowledge of the Ancient Catholic Church. They bring before us the Christian Church in its religious thinking, feeling and working at the end of the second century. Only a Catholic writer could present such a picture.
We first give the Coptic fragment. We then give Peter's affairs with Simon at Rome, or the Actus Vercellenses, which begin with Paul's abode at Rome and his taking leave of the congregation there (chaps. I–III) . The next section (chaps. IV–XXXII) treats of Simon, the Magician, and the struggle which Peter had with him. ”

“ No man of any age suffered so much abuse, nor was there ever one whose memory labored under such a weight of obloquy as that of Paul—first from the followers of Apollos; and afterwards from the Catholics of the second century, when the mother of God rose like a new star in the heavens. The first half of the Acts was written, as will be shown, expressly to exalt Peter over him and degrade him from the rank of an Apostle. The Revelation ascribed to St. John is nothing but a bitter tirade of denunciation against Paul and his followers. ”

“ The place of Christ as visible Head, for infinite indeed is the distance between Christ and Peter, as to the headship of mystical influx and the source of grace. Neither he nor any creature has part with Christ as to this latter, of which Paul writes, "that God hath set all things under His feet, and given Him to be Head over all to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who filleth all in all;" ”

“ It is clear from the proof here shown, that Irenæus has no claim to our belief as a writer, and that the statements he makes in regard to Peter in Rome and Paul in the West are mere inventions of his own to assist him in his disputes with the Gnostics, in which he was engaged for the best part of his life. ”

“ Peter's epistles were sent to all Christians in general, Jews and Gentiles, living in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia; the greatest part of whom must have been converted by Paul, and had been before involved in ignorance and sin, as all people in general were till the manifestation of the Gospel of Christ. That St. Peter wrote to all Christians in those countries is apparent, from the valedictory blessing or wish at the end of the epistle, [23] : Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. ”

“ Paul would not have rebuked Peter to his face about some very important points had Peter been the recognised head of the Church. [83:7] Peter was a coward, braggart, and traitor, and was reproved again and again by Jesus Himself, [83:8] who would not have chosen such a person to be the head of the Church. There is not a single [84] reference in the New Testament to show that Peter ever attempted to exercise a primacy over his companions. He called himself a fellow "elder." [84:1]
3. Peter's presence in Rome. ”

“ How could S. Peter hold the primacy at Rome, when the Acts represents him continually as in Judæa, among those of his nation to whom he had, as S. Paul says, a peculiar mission, the apostleship of circumcision? We reply, first: that the apostleship of S. Peter to the Jews did not exclude his labors with the Gentiles; in fact, we know from the Acts that S. Peter had a vision which led him to work for the latter, and that vision was immediately followed by the admission, by S. Peter himself, of the centurion Cornelius. ”

“ Peter appears in a much more favoured light than before; he even
receives the commission to feed Jesus sheep, that is to say, to guide
the Church, and is told that he is likely to have the honour of dying a
martyr's death. The beloved disciple, on the other hand, who has always
taken precedence of him in chapters i.-xx. (xiii. 24; xviii. 16; xix.
26; xx. 2-10) , in chapter xxi. (22-24) has to content himself with a
humbler role: he is promised a long life, and is given the task of
writing the Gospel. ”